News

2020

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Drama Therapists @ Home

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The Theatre & Health lab in the NYU Steinhardt Program in Drama Therapy is proud to host Drama Therapists @ Home, a site-specific community therapeutic theatre festival online in response to the worldwide call to stay home. Join over 45 drama therapists, care providers, students, friends, and family from around the world sharing meditations on being during this time.

May 1&2, 8-10pm / May 3, 1-3pm (US-EST). Please submit this audience RSVP form by April 30th, 2020. click here.

Bachelor of Arts Therapy

World Alliance of Dramatherapy

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World Alliance of Dramatherapy (WAD )had its seventh meeting in June with ever-increasing membership. If you go to www.worldallianceofdramatherapy.comyou will see ANZACATA there, as well as our collaborating members. Pedro Torres is there from Chile, Sol Guerrero from Argentina, Majid Amraei from Iran, just to name a few, as well those from English speaking countries more familiar to Australasian dramatherapists, such as Nisha Sajnani from New York and Ditty Dokter from the UK. It is extraordinary to see how dramatherapy is burgeoning in more and more countries.

An international conference in Sri Lanka for 2021was being planned, until the terrible terrorist attack at Easter. Ravindra Ranasinha now tells us that life is now not as safe and people are anxious to move around in certain areas. We are now considering a conference for 2022, perhaps in Europe. Meanwhile, Stelios Krasanakis from Greece will talk to the European Federation of Dramatherapy about a special day or half day for WAD at the Prague 2020 Conference in May.

World Dramatherapy Week, where dramatherapy events can be planned and shared on the WAD website, will be 21 to 27 October. Please do something special in that week, take some photos and send to us.

2018

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Adrian Łania

It is with a heavy heart and great sadness to announce to you all that our beloved colleague, teacher and friend Adrian Lania has died after a long struggle with emotional and psychological health.

In this link are some words that Joanna Jaaniste has received from colleagues, students and friends from around the globe.

We also have much gratitude to Adrian for his work as treasurer of Dramatherapy Australia (NECTA).

Adrian will be sorely missed.

Understanding Dramatherapy, Auckland NZ

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The utilisation of the arts, particularly drama/theatre, as an alternative or in addition to talk therapy for symptom relief has long been established as a credible set of modalities. Those who can access them (particularly youth) find relief from mental health issues. A new culturally relevant, mixed- methods pilot intervention and research protocol within Dramatherapy will be outlined and demonstrated.

Adrian Lania and Joanna spent a year writing a curriculum at graduate diploma level for IKON Brisbane, a private college with branches in three state capitals in Australia. It was envisaged that the course would begin in 2016; however, there were too few enrolees for a viable course. The course started in December 2016, as the Federal Government had discontinued funding for arts therapy at the college, despite IKON having a record of 80% employment after graduation! This timely start has meant that the students receive VET-fee funding until the end of 2017.

We were supported in writing the course by Professor Phil Jones and Dr Sue Jennings and others, which has been an enormous help, especially in clarifying our vision and the associated content. We have ended up with a course which Phil has told us is the most comprehensive he has seen. This is partly because we have not favoured one particular psychotherapeutic modality in creating it, apart from the essential developmental area. Rather than having a Jungian, Object Relations or Narrative bias, we have tried to present the students with this eclectic discipline in its rich range of aspects.

We now have ten committed and hardworking students in the course, who are extremely well-qualified already in the fields of drama and psychotherapy. They have a range of counselling and drama qualifications, and this makes for a lively and interesting group to teach and learn from at the college in Brisbane and on internet for tutorials.

Our next challenge is to find a way to bring the students to Masters level after graduation, which we hope to do with the help of our Western Sydney and ANZATA colleagues.

2016

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Graduate Diploma of Dramatherapy

Are you looking to gain higher level skills to advance your career?

Gain new specialised skills in Dramatherapy and help others build strength & capacity to make changes in their life.

Dramatherapy is an active, experiential approach to facilitating psychological, emotional and social change and makes use of role play, voice work, myth, ritual and storytelling to provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals, solve problems or express feelings.

It can help increase clients’ self awareness and offer a creative way for an individual or group to explore and solve personal and social problems.

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2014

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Updates

The Byron Bay workshop on Dementia and Dramatherapy was a great success, and Catie Saleh and Joanna had sixteen people involved – art therapists and people who work with those in residential care. The participants actually asked us to come back later in the year, so there will be a second workshop in August, where we will concentrate more on combining Dramatherapy with some of the functional aspects of dementia. And Adrian and Joanna have a brilliant group of eight highly qualified participants in the 2014 Introduction to Dramatherapy course! We are learning a lot from them, and they are contributing so much to their own learning. On Saturday we introduced Embodiment work, and symbolic Projection, and on Sunday we worked with Metaphor and Three styles of Improvisation. We look forward to the second weekend in May.

A fabulous opportunity to spend two days immersed in the wonderful world of Dramatherapy! A training workshop in this evidence-based and extremely effective way of working creatively with clients will be offered by one of Australia’s leading experts in the field of using dramatherapy with clients living with dementia. Click here to see the workshop pictures

2013

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Humanity, Wisdom & Mediation – Dramatherpy and Dementia Talk

Is it possible to live in the 21st Century spiritually? A dual task awaits humanity: what each individual brings with their own thoughts and questions, forming a foundation on which we can work together - and using free initiative to understand world events and find a place in which to work with our deeds. Can we create a place in which the universal human can exist and evolve? - where nothing separates us, whether it be our nationality, gender, customs, language, or religion, because we are are connected with what is universally human.

Joanna Jaaniste will be speaking about Dramatherapy and dementia as part of the Humanity, Wisdom & Meditation event. This talk will take place on Saturday 21st September at Rudolf Steiner House, Sydney at 11:45 am.

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2012

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Comedy Night with Akmal Saleh, Joel Ozborn & Tami Sussman

Thank you so much to all who supported our not-for-profit fundraiser at the Comedy Store two weeks ago – we are delighted to say that we were allocated $3,663 for NECTA, which will assist us in bringing Dramatherapy researcher/practioners from overseas to encourage the spread of the discipline in Australia. Thank you also to those who were not able to come, and sent their positive thoughts.

Akmal, Joel, Joseph and Tami were so generous with their time, and the Comedy Store with their hosting of the event and the amount of money dedicated to the Centre. It was a terrific evening – we were holding our sides from laughter. And our thanks go to the wonderful Catie Saleh, who helped us to organise the whole thing.

We invite you to a charity performance at The Comedy Store, Moore Park, Monday 26th November 2012, at 7pm to support the work of The Dramatherapy Centre Sydney.

Come and enjoy a fabulous night of comedy with comedian Akmal Saleh, supported by the very talented Joel Ozborn and newcomer to the Sydney comedy scene, actress and comedienne Tami Sussman.

Support the training of creative arts therapists who use drama, dance, music and art to work with clients who have a wide variety of needs, including mental health issues and recovery from trauma, grief and addiction.

An extremely entertaining and enjoyable way to support a very worthy cause!!

Dramatherapy fellows of all kinds please follow a link and purchase a ticket! Do not hesitate too long as we wish the dramatherapy community to be represented strong and with smiles on your faces at this fantastic event. Lets get together.